Programming Languages and Compilers

CS 164 @ UC Berkeley, Fall 2025

Schedule

Important Dates

Week # Activities, Class Compiler Implementation Guides Date Notes Homework Due(Due @ 9 PM PT) Drill Due(Due @ 9 PM PT)
0 What is a compiler?
FP in OCaml §1.1–1.4
FP in OCaml §2.1–2.5
OCaml Activity 1 (Pattern Matching) 		Thu Aug 28
1 Reflection Activity
OCaml Activity 2 (Types, Custom Types) 		Tue Sep 2
Thu Sep 4 Homework 0 Drill 1
2 S-Expressions
Unary Operations
Correctness and Testing
Booleans: Interpreter Edition 		Tue Sep 9
Thu Sep 11 Drill 2
3 Booleans: Compiler Edition
Conditionals 		Tue Sep 16
Wed Sep 17 Deadline to Drop Courses or Change School of Eng Grading Options
Thu Sep 18 Homework 1 Drill 3
4 Binary Operations
Reflecting on Binary Operations
Naming Expressions (Let): Interpreter Edition
Naming Expressions (Let): Compiler Edition 		Tue Sep 23
Thu Sep 25 Homework 2 Drill 4
5 Pairs
Handling Errors 		Tue Sep 30
Thu Oct 2 Drill 5
6 Interacting with the Environment (Input)
Memory Understanding Activities
Interacting with the Environment (Output) 		Tue Oct 7
Thu Oct 9 Homework 3 Drill 6
7 Functions Tue Oct 14
Thu Oct 16 Homework 4 Drill 7
8 Tail Call Optimization
Parsing 		Tue Oct 21
Thu Oct 23 Homework 5 Drill 8
9 Midterm Week
Regular Expressions Activity 		Tue Oct 28 Midterm
Thu Oct 30 No Drill (Midterm Week)
Fri Oct 31 Deadline to Change L&S Grading Options
10 Parsing
First-Class Functions (Function Pointers) 		Tue Nov 4
Thu Nov 6 Homework 6 Drill 9
11 First-Class Functions (Lambdas) Tue Nov 11 Veteran's Day (break)
Thu Nov 13 Homework 7 Drill 10
12 Optimization
Optimization (Constant Folding)
Intermediate Representations
Register Allocation Activity 		Tue Nov 18
Thu Nov 20 Drill 11
13 Garbage Collection Activity Tue Nov 25 Task 1 of HW 8
Thu Nov 27 Thanksgiving (break) No Drill (Break)
14 Type Checking Slides
Type Checking Activity
Reflections on Trusting Trust 		Tue Dec 2
Thu Dec 4 Homework 8 No Drill (Read Reflections on Trusting Trust)
Fri Dec 5 Deadline to Submit L&S or School of Eng Late Change of Class Schedule
15 RRR Week Tue Dec 9
Thu Dec 11
16 Fri Dec 19 Final Exam, 7-10pm, Location TBA

🚩 indicates a particularly difficult homework! We encourage you to start early!

Sections

  1. Introduction to OCaml
  2. Testing
  3. Interpreters & compilers
  4. Compile-Time VS Run-Time
  5. Detective Work (Debugging Assembly)
  6. Stack Vs. Heap
  7. Lexical and dynamic scope
  8. Midterm Review
  9. Context-Free Grammars
  10. Screen Reader
  11. First-Class Functions
  12. Optimization

Synchronous Events